


The Magnus Records 028 - Seaside

by ErinsWorks



Series: The Magnus Records [14]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast), The Magnus Records
Genre: AU: The Entities are nice and the world is awful, Alternate Universe, Gen, Propaganda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-24 22:21:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22365430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErinsWorks/pseuds/ErinsWorks
Summary: In a world of state-sponsored propaganda and tranquil diplomats, perhaps one Melanie King and crew would be less devoted to exposing the supernatural. Perhaps she would assume a new identity. And perhaps she would find herself face to face with ghosts.Here at the Magnus Sanctuary, London, we will find out.Start your interview. Share your hope.
Series: The Magnus Records [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1497773
Comments: 11
Kudos: 54





	The Magnus Records 028 - Seaside

**MAG028 – Resident MELANIE KING – “Seaside”**

[CLICK]

**KEEPER**

Thank you for coming in, Miss…

[SILENCE]

… Melanie, I understand that you may have some preconceived notions about me based on my coworker’s opinions, but I believe things may run smoother if you extend me a bit more compliance.

**MELANIE**

And _I_ believe you’re an uptight prick. _(Loudly)_ Right, Tim?

**TIM**

_(Muffled by a door)_ Yup!

**KEEPER**

… Tim I would ask that you not listen in on interviews, especially those that Elias has asked me to conduct.

**TIM**

_(Still muffled)_ Fine, yeah.

**KEEPER**

… In any case. 

Miss King, I am told you are under the employ of the Sanctuary, but you spend much of your time outside of the building. Can I ask what you do, exactly, and if it pertains to what’s been troubling you?

**MELANIE**

… Will you tell anyone about it?

**KEEPER**

Of course not. Sanctuary policy prevents me from sharing any information given in interviews, except for information that would imply or confirm an intent to harm yourself or others-

**MELANIE**

Literal goddamn lives are on the line if you tell _anyone_ what I tell you. Okay? Can you quit it with the 10-dollar vocabulary for long enough to get that through your head?

**KEEPER**

… Got it.

**MELANIE**

There you go. Talking like a bloody _normal person._

**KEEPER**

I’ll try my best.

Now. What do you _do,_ Miss King.

**MELANIE**

… I run DownWithMOB.

**KEEPER**

_(Sputtering)_ You _what???_

**MELANIE**

_(Voice rising)_ You tell _anyone,_ Sims, and I will _beat your skull into a pancake, okay, Jon??_

_[DEEP sigh, trying to calm herself]_

I, Melanie King, run the infamous _“Deep-web anarchist propaganda”_ series _DownWithMOB._ My crew and I take it upon ourselves to expose everything the Monarchy of Britain has done, and to break the imperialist authoritarian propaganda they shove down the throats of gullible followers like _you._

There. Now go get the phone, call the Monarchy Enforcers, and by the time you’ve said your first word, I’ll have killed you.

**KEEPER**

… Which one are you?

**MELANIE**

What?

**KEEPER**

Queen, Candycane, Warhall, Anton. You all use voice-changers and wear masks when you’re going through sites, so the Monarchy can’t track you through your episodes. I have no clue which one you are.

**MELANIE**

… I’m Queen. They’re all plays on our real names, which wasn’t the smartest decision, but we started as 20-somethings.

… You watch our show?

**KEEPER**

Only recently, but yes.

**MELANIE**

… Sasha said you were a Monarchy drone. One of the idiots that believes all the misinformation they shove into your stupid faces.

**KEEPER**

Firstly, hurtful. Secondly… I’ve been having doubts as of late.

**MELANIE**

… Okay then I… I guess you’re safe to share with then.

**KEEPER**

"Safe to share with" is practically in my job description at this point, yes. Now, if you’re done with the threats, is there anything you’d like to discuss? Anything… Spiritual, or supernatural, perhaps?

**MELANIE**

_(Caught off guard)_ How the _hell_ did you know??

**KEEPER**

_(Exhausted laugh)_ It’s become something of a pattern.

Now. Name, subject, and date of… encounter? If you wouldn’t mind, of course.

**MELANIE**

… Melanie King, and what I saw at the wreckage site of _The S.S. Cambridge_ when we were filming there in January of 2015.

**KEEPER**

Recording date 17th of April, 2016.

Hold on, _The Cambridge?_ As in the last embassy ship we ever sent to the French Dominion? 1945?

**MELANIE**

That’s the one.

**KEEPER**

… Didn’t the French Domain… Shoot it down via missiles?

**MELANIE**

That’s the official story, yes. If you look into it, it becomes pretty clear that the Monarchy sent missiles after their own goddamn ship.

**KEEPER**

I… Find that hard to believe. Why would we kill our own diplomats?

**MELANIE**

_Because_ they were our own diplomats. The Monarchy wants to put forward the impression that they’re kind, that they’re trying their damndest to stop our endless wars with the world, but the simple fact is that _war is money._ It’s free propaganda, so pure and perfect that even bloody pacifists get swept up in it: Sure, The Monarchy doesn’t WANT to fight France, but they’re fighting us! Look, we even sent a ship to them, see? And look at that! Our peacekeeping attempts been shot down! 15 more years of war, then!

And it doesn’t just win them points with the people. It sends an internal message: Any diplomats or ambassadors, any extremists or pacifists within the monarchy need to _keep quiet,_ or else they’ll end up on the next ship out to the Domain.

**KEEPER**

I see.

**MELANIE**

Yeah. Thing is, this has only been a conspiracy theory for a while. The supposed coordinates of the crash site have been passed around, but boating licenses are kind of hard for the average political extremist to get their hands on. But, Candycane _really_ wanted to get proof of the missile damage. If it turned out to be true, it’d be another piece of solid damning evidence against the pricks upstairs.

But, like I said, none of us were getting a boating license any time soon. We had criminal records even _before_ we started the series, and we’ve done a lot of work to stay off the radar ever since. So we had to outsource to someone new, preferably someone who wouldn’t get themselves killed helping us. I asked a friend… We’ll call her Washington… if she had any connections that could comfortably sail us out to a rocky outcropping overnight. By some miracle, she did: Washington was quite good friends with this one fisherwoman named Sarah-

**KEEPER**

No cheeky codename?

**MELANIE**

Don’t interrupt. And no, no cheeky codename. I don’t think she needs one. 

Anyway, apparently she watched our series, which is always a good sign, because you need some _seriously_ illegal browsing technology just to get access to it- that meant she was good to work with. Then, of course, came her boating license: She’d been selling fish since 2006, so she was an experienced sailor. All in all, she was a perfect candidate.

Washington gave me Sarah's contact info, and a way to message her on a secure server. We talked back and forth, decided to sail out on the 12th, and met at a dock. I told her to bring her own mask.

**KEEPER**

Naturally.

**MELANIE**

What did I _just_ say about interruptions?

Anyway. We waited by the dock for some time, before the boat sped in. And as the roaring motor of the trawler-boat became a quiet hum, the door to the cabin opened. The woman who stepped out, Sarah, was probably the most stereotypical sailor I'd ever seen: she was dressed in a long navy peacoat and an old tricorn hat. She looked like a character in one of those Republique pirate movies.

The only thing that really broke the aesthetic was the mask she had on. It was ornamental looking, almost like… Tribal? It looked Celtic, maybe? It had these really pretty oceanic swirls on it, spiraling blue lines, and all that. It was unconventional, and it didn't really meah with our whole... punk-rock aesthetic… but hey, a mask is a mask.

Finally, after a lot of staring at the outfit, she broke the silence: "Well, get on guys!"

We loaded everything onto the boat and started sailing to the rumored location of the crash site. It took about an hour until we reached the rock site, and the whole time Sarah was just… whistling. I don't know what song she was whistling, and I couldn't repeat it now, but the weird thing at the time was… I _knew_ it. Like, the same way you know the melody to _Irish Rover_ , or _Drunken Sailor_ , or any old pseudo-shanty. And… Well we all started whistling along. Can you picture that, for me? Four anarchists decked head to toe in leather and cheap body-armor, whistling along to a sailor-girl's old tune. I don't know how, but I could tell somehow that under the mask, thought the whistles, she was smiling. It was nice.

As we got closer, I noticed Sarah's hands grew steadier on the wheel. Like somehow, she was more assured of where we were going than she had been before. Homing in on something like radar. And as we came to a slow stop, staring up at the massive wooden wreck atop the rocky outcroppings, Sarah said the first words any of us had in an hour. "Oh. This place." She said, looking it up and down. "I know this one."

None of us really questioned how weird that was to say.

Getting inside was tougher than expected: the place had rusted over, so every door had to practically be pried open. But once the main cabin of the boat had been opened, the ship was ours for investigation.

… There were corpses everywhere.

Most had rotted to bare-bones and flesh, but many seemed… unnaturally calcified. Like they were preserved, almost, with blissful smiles on their faces. Anton seemed incredibly put off with it, but nonetheless, she got the camera rolling. We started investigating for any sign of ballistics damage. 

We found some truly tragic stuff on the way. The room for ambassadors' children, filled with poor tiny corpses, broken pieces of artwork, family members clutching to each other in desperation, all the stuff you'd expect. It wasn't long until we found the damage site though: A massive hole in the bottom deck, the steel bent outward and inward from a devastating explosion. Water had flooded in, and most damning of all, there was an M.O.B missile, lying undetonated and half-submerged in the water. We… got out pretty quick when we saw it.

**KEEPER**

Seems a pretty open-and-shut case, then.

**MELANIE**

It very nearly was. But as soon as we made our closing remarks, and the usual sign-offs, light began to pour through the holes in the boat. Specifically, a searchlight. One of the M.O.B. search helicopters was searching the ocean for boats on the move, probably because of all the drug shipments being made lately. They'd never spot the boat floating by the rocks, but if we started sailing back while the copter was out there, we'd be gunned down in moments. So… Candycane got out the snacks, and we set out to see if this shipwreck still had dry blankets. We were going to wait the searchlights out.

Sarah found beds and blankets pretty quickly, and said that she'd keep watch. She explained that she'd gotten a lot of sleep last night, and she'd wake us all if anything dangerous happened, or when the spotlights finally left.

It was only when I started drifting to sleep that I saw a message in white ink scrawled over a framed flag of the American Republique by my bedside: _"Falcons and talons will not pull down the white flag."_ Something about Sarah keeping watch really put me at ease, but even then, I knew something was… odd, about it. Before I could give it too much thought though, I was out.

I woke up in the middle of the night, and I can't say what woke me. I could still hear the distant hum of helicopter rotors, so clearly we weren't good to leave just yet. But I felt this compulsion to go to the door and see if Sarah was there. She wasn't.

I hurriedly grabbed my things and went out to investigate. The thought didn't occur that Sarah had somehow managed to ditch us, even though that was probably the most likely option, but I thought she could've been in danger. So I began quietly slinking through the ship to see if I could find her. There was chatter coming from down the hall, like a quiet conversation. One of the voices was Sarah's, I knew that. The other was too quiet to hear a sound. I panicked for a second, assuming that we'd been sold out, and began to sprint down the hall in a rage. But as that second voice grew clearer, all that panic and anger boiling in my head just… dried up. Until eventually, I was once again calmly slinking to the doorway.

I could finally make out bits and pieces of the conversation, as I peeked through the open door frame. Sitting at a perfectly-set table in the middle of the ship's dining room was Sarah and… A portly woman. She was outfitted in a light gray suit, and had this kind and passive look about her. Her mouth never seemed to move too much when she spoke. Sarah had set the mask on the table, and I was struck by how… _familiar_ she looked. I could've sworn, if I hadn't known better, that she looked just like my older cousin.

I could hear something about _"A small favor",_ and _"Paying it back to the Tranquil"_ on Sarah's end of the table, while the strange woman dressed in gray nodded along, blissfully. Then, after what must have been 10 minutes of conversation, the woman nodded one last time and just… Disappeared. All that was left in her seat was a tattered silk rag.

Sarah got up from the table, and I made a mad dash back to my bed before she could spot me. As I pretended to fall back asleep, there was a loud tapping on the door and I sat up. Sarah had come to tell us that the coast was clear, and that the helicopters had finally stopped their patrols of the ocean.

We got on Sarah's boat just as the sun started to rise. Anton joked that if she ever saw another ship again she'd be sick. We all laughed, and Sarah said that she should prepare for some stomach trouble. We were docking somewhere different. Our boat came to port somewhere we hadn't seen, but it seemed… memorable. It was this salty fishy marketplace, the kind you only see at the outermost edges of the city, you know? 

Anyway. We took off our masks as we came into the market's dock, and this old fisherman greeted Sarah with a big old hug. He gave each of us a firm handshake, and told us that he was happy to have some familiar faces in the port.

Sarah began to usher us out of the market, before I could ask where we were or what had happened last night. She shrugged off my questions and said that she was on a tight schedule. And just like that we left the dock, and hurried back to our respective homes.

**KEEPER**

And… is that all?

**MELANIE**

That's it, yeah. It's… Really weird, really, how crazy all this sounds out loud. Because at the time it just felt… _normal_ you know? The only really _weird_ feeling I got was this constant state of Deja Vu.

**KEEPER**

I see. 

Will that be all?

**MELANIE**

Yeah… Yeah I… Thank you, Jon.

I'm gonna go have drinks with Sasha. _(Sarcastically)_ Have an awful day.

**KEEPER**

_(Chuckles.)_ Same to yourself, Queen.

**MELANIE**

_(Humorlessly)_ don't push it.

[DOOR SLAMS.]

**KEEPER**

… How deep does all this go, I wonder? Who are these… _fishermen?_ How much of the world is hidden under the Monarchy's watching gaze?

…

How much of it runs right back to this Sanctuary?

…

End recording.

**Author's Note:**

> So this one is a BIT of a mess, but yeah!!! Danger Days Anarchist Melanie King. All of the names really are puns btw, if you look up the original names of Melanie's crew.
> 
> Special thanks to AO3 user Zykaben for helping me make sense of this one. She's the best, and proofread this, and helped me make the narrative a bit better!!!


End file.
